(Bloomberg) -- Above all else, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s selection of JD Vance as his running mate for the 2024 election signals how powerful populism remains in US politics. Vance, a 39-year-old freshman senator from Ohio and the author of Hillbilly Elegy, has been one of the strongest voices for Trump’s brand of politics on Capitol Hill. He’s now positioned to be the standard-bearer of Trumpism after Trump.
Who is JD Vance?
The bearded senator, who often campaigns in jeans and a button-down shirt, rose from poverty to become a venture capitalist. Born in 1984 and raised in Middletown, Ohio, in part by his grandmother, he served with the US Marines in Iraq and later attended Yale Law School.
What’s Hillbilly Elegy about?
Vance rose to fame with the 2016 release of his best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, about his chaotic childhood as the son of a drug-addicted single mother moving from boyfriend to boyfriend in an economically struggling steel town in southwest Ohio. The book offered a vivid explanation of the anger and despair of many working-class Americans attracted to Trump, and Netflix adapted the story into a movie.
What’s his business experience?
Vance in 2016 became a principal at Mithril Capital Management, a venture firm backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, where he served a relatively brief stint. In 2017, he joined the Steve Case-backed firm Revolution LLC in Washington, as a partner focusing on startups. In 2019, he moved back to Ohio and formed Narya Capital, named after to the ring worn by the wizard Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. Narya was backed by Thiel as well as tech investors Eric Schmidt and Marc Andreessen.
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How did he enter politics?
Vance announced his bid for the US Senate in 2021, winning a crowded Republican primary in May 2022 with Trump’s endorsement. He was elected that November, succeeding Republican Rob Portman who did not seek a third term. Thiel contributed $15 million to Vance’s campaign. Ohio, once a presidential battleground state, has voted overwhelmingly for Trump both times he ran for president.
What has Vance said about Trump?
Vance once was a “never Trumper.” In 2016 he said Trump is “noxious and is leading the White working class to a very dark place.”
But Vance later said he came to support Trump, who’d once been a Democrat, based on his policies in office. “People ask me what changed, and it’s pretty simple: at the time, I didn’t believe that a Democrat from New York would be able to accomplish much,” Vance said in a 2021 letter to Ohio Republican Party state central committee members. “I was wrong.”
Why is Vance an appealing pick for Republicans?
Vance is a clear play for working-class voters who may previously have been Democrats but shifted parties to back Trump, according to Alex Triantafilou, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party. Vance’s upbringing helps him to connect to the economic struggles of those voters in the crucial Rust Belt swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that will likely decide the 2024 election. “He literally wrote the book on this moment in history,” Triantafilou said.
In his 2022 Senate race, Vance won the working class Mahoning Valley, his rival’s home area and a longtime Democratic stronghold.
Vance distinguished himself from rivals on the vice presidential shortlist by being the first to travel to New York to stand with Trump during his criminal trial. “There isn’t anyone out there who I think would be more loyal to my father and his agenda,” Donald Trump Jr. said in a statement, calling Vance “an all-star for the America First movement.”
Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas has called Vance “a rising superstar” who is able to reach out to younger voters and suburban women in a way “maybe that somebody with gray hair wouldn’t quite as effectively.”
Vance can also tap his Silicon Valley connections to raise money for Trump, such as with his recent San Francisco fundraiser led by tech investors David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, co-hosts of the influential All-In podcast.
What has Vance done in the Senate?
The Ohio senator has been perhaps the loudest opponent in the Senate of aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s war, putting him at odds with congressional party leaders and Republicans’ powerful strong-defense wing.
He’s also been a consistent vote against President Joe Biden’s environmental policies, including pollution standards that increasingly will compel automakers to sell hybrid and electric vehicles. “The whole EV thing is a scam,” Vance said in a July 2022 radio interview.
Yet Vance has also had a bipartisan streak. He’s worked with Democrats on seeking stronger safety regulations for railroads after a disastrous 2023 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, as well as on clawing back the pay of bank executives whose institutions fail and on forcing more competition in the credit card industry. Those bipartisan efforts have earned him plaudits from Democrats but didn’t succeed in getting bills enacted into law.
Vance has also cheered the Biden administration’s tech-focused antitrust enforcement, singling out Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan for praise. This sets Vance apart from mainstream Republicans who have consistently criticized Khan’s broad interpretation of existing antitrust law to prosecute tech companies that don’t fit the profile of historic monopolies.
“I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is actually doing a pretty good job,” Vance said at a conference in February.
What’s his view on trade and immigration?
Vance is a vociferous critic of free-trade deals and an outspoken opponent of immigration, arguing the surge under Biden is depressing wages for workers. He’s said bipartisan trade agreements made by previous American politicians sent factory jobs to low-wage countries such as China and Mexico, and left the Rust Belt — including Vance’s hometown of Middletown, Ohio, a former steelmaking hub — dealing with the aftermath.
What’s his foreign-policy stance?
Vance is an isolationist who sees China as the biggest threat to the US. He’s argued that the US is “stretched too thin” overseas and should zero in on Asia to counter China.
The Ohio senator says he opposes any further aid to Ukraine and has pushed for peace as soon as possible. “I think it’s ridiculous that we’re focused on this border in Ukraine,” Vance once said on Steve Bannon’s podcast. “I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.”
Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation and a friend of Vance’s, said the Ohio senator is already the leading political figure arguing for a return to a non-interventionist foreign policy. His views mirror the rise of a new strain of policy shared by younger Republicans — and fueled by Trump — that the old ways are out of date. Their approach questions the one-time conventional wisdom that the US should seek primacy through leading global alliances, promote democracy and entice other nations to embrace American values.
On the other hand, Vance has said he wants to help Israel “finish the job” against the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
What has Vance said about climate change?
Vance’s pivot on climate and energy issues has been swift. In 2020, he was unequivocal in acknowledging global warming. We “of course have a climate problem in our society,” he told a January 2020 conference in Ohio. At the time, Vance blamed “unrestrained emissions in China” for driving the phenomenon, though he also lamented the slow adoption of carbon-free power in the US.
By 2022, Vance had shifted his approach, questioning whether humans were solely responsible for driving climate change and casting scorn on activists focused on fighting it. In a July 2022 interview on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, he agreed there wasn’t a climate crisis. In a candidate forum, he derided “ridiculous ugly windmills all over Ohio farms that don’t produce enough electricity to run a cell phone.” And on X, he said Democrats were pushing a “green energy fantasy” in America while China was building coal-fired power plants.
--With assistance from Lizette Chapman, Anna Edgerton and Jennifer A. Dlouhy.
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